I'm developing an application that requires connections to SQL Server and Oracle. The SQL Server host that I connect to is behind my company firewall and my Oracle host is an ASPLinux Oracle 10g Express Server virtual appliance running locally under Parallels Desktop 3.0 (Build 5584) on my MacBook pro. While at work I'm able to connect to both the SQL Server and Oracle instances with no problems. When working from home, I need to connect to my company's VPN to access the SQL Server instance. I'm using version 4.9.01 (0100) of the Cisco VPN client, which allows me to connect to the SQL Server host with no problems. But when I'm connected via VPN, I can't access the Oracle host running in Parallels. The strange thing is that if I connect to the company VPN using the built-in Mac VPN profile, I can connect to both hosts with no problems. The issue with the built-in Mac VPN client is that my connection gets intermittently dropped. Any ideas? Config details: Macbook Pro running 10.5.2 Parallels Desktop 3.0, Build 5584 ASPLinux Oracle 10g Express Server connected via Host-only networking Cisco VPN Client, versino 4.9.01 (0100)
Hi, This is not strange. A VPN client simply intercepts all of your TCP/IP requests, encrypts them and sends them to the VPN server. When you connect from your windows VM machine, all TCP/IP requests gets sent to your company VPN server which means your local MAC OS X is not accessible anymore from the windows. It also implies that any web request you send from your windows VM goes back thru the VPN to your company to get sent back to the internet from there, and the replies goes back to you. When you use the MAC OS X VPN client, then all TCP/IP requests from your MAC (including the windows ones) go to your company VPN server. And then you can access your local oracle engine on your mac, because the requests goes from your windows to your mac and is thus not sent to a VPN server. You might want to check the CISCO support forums, to see about a better or updated client for the MAC.
@fbronner, Thanks for your reply. I have one point of clarification that I'm not sure I was clear on in my initial post. I'm connecting to VPN using the Mac OS X Cisco VPN client, not Windows. So, the order of events when connecting from home is: 1) Fire up the MacBook Pro, 2) Establish a connection to my ISP via the MacBook AirPort interface, 3) Launch Parallels Desktop running Linux/Oracle, 4) Launch Cisco VPN client and connect to my company's VPN server, 5) Verify connection with the SQL Server instance running behind the company firewall, 6) Verify connection with Oracle running on Parallels virtual host. All goes fine until step 6. So, I'm initiating a request from my Mac, which attempts to connect to Oracle, which is running under Parallels, which is also on my Mac. Parallels is running in Host-only networking mode (although I've tried Shared networking and Bridged Ethernet with the same result). The IP address that Host-only networking assigns to the Linux host that's running Oracle is 10.37.129.3, which is ping-able. When Oracle is started, I can access the schema at IP address 10.37.129.4 (when at work or when not connected to VPN via the Cisco) client. It's not clear to me what is blocking the request to Oracle when it's running on the same host as the web host. Thanks again for your reply.
Ah, sorry. Clarification understood. Can you try this with your ASPLinux session: 1.- Open up a terminal console on it. 2.- Establish you VPN connection 3.- Type netstat -rn on your terminal session. 4.- Does the output of your netstat as a default route which goes back to your mac or to your VPN client? 5.- Do the same command on the mac os x terminal command line, do you have a route to your ark box? 6.- Try a traceroute to the IP address from both machines toward the other? Does it block or complete? 7.- Bring back the result here, maybe that'll give some sort of idea. Thank you
So, after a lot of back and forth with my network admin, it looks like he's been able to make an update to the company's VPN server to fix a quirk with the Mac flavor of the Cisco VPN client. Apparently the Mac client does something with NAT transparency and tunneling local/remote nets that was causing my ASPLinux Parallels virtual host to go missing. I can see about getting more information and post it if others would find that useful. fbonner, thanks again for your interest in this post.
